Read the text (PDF)

Introduction to the Source

The text used for this translation is taken from the St. Sophia First Chronicle, a fifteenth-century compilation written in Old Russian that belongs to a larger family of Novgorodian chronicles created during this period. This chronicle was named “St. Sophia” because nineteenth-century scholars had once (incorrectly) believed that the earliest versions had been composed by a fifteenth-century Novgorodian author in the St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod. Today, scholars think that the chronicle was composed by a Muscovite author.

The manuscript used in this translation is an example of the so-called “younger version” of the chronicle (a later copy of the St. Sophia First chronicle text). It is known as Tolstoy's Sophia I Chronicle, named after its owner, the collector Fyodor Andreevich Tolstoy (1758–1849). Today it is held by the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg. In the St. Sophia First Chronicle, the “Testament of Magnus” spans 214r-a through 215r-a. It can also be found in other Novgorodian chronicles such as the Novgorod Karamzin Chronicle and the Fourth Novgorod Chronicle. It is likely that none of these three chronicles contains an original version of the “Testament;” they all seem to share a common textual source, today unknown. Overall, these chronicles preserve much of the same narrative content but each features omissions and additions. For example, the First Sophia Chronicle and Fourth Novgorod Chronicle track fairly closely up to entries dated 1418, when the main body of the First Sophia chronicle ends while the Fourth Novgorod Chronicle continues in the mid-fifteenth century. Furthermore, the First Sophia Chronicle’s content generally focuses less exclusively on Novgorod than the Fourth Novgorod Chronicle and Novgorod Karamzin Chronicle does. (See John H. Lind’s work in Further Reading for a discussion of fifteenth-century Russian chronicles.)

Introduction to the Text

Composed in fifteenth-century Rus (a medieval, primarily Slavic civilization located in what is today Eastern Europe), the “Testament of Magnus” is a “manuscript” allegedly authored by Magnus Eriksson, king of Sweden from 1319 to 1363 and Norway from 1319 to 1355, during his dying days in an Orthodox monastery. A popular Novgorodian tale, the “Testament” recounts the Swedish king’s unsuccessful military exploits in Novgorod— his 1348 campaign ended in complete defeat — and serves as a warning to his fellow Swedes to avoid going to war with the Rus people. Thus, the “Testament” promotes the Novgorod Republic’s military prowess and its role in protecting Rus’s interior lands from foreign invaders.

Dated to the year 6860 using the Mundane Era of Constantinople date system (1352 in the Julian calendar), the text opens with the explicit claim that it is the “Рᲂуукописание” (autograph manuscript) of King Magnus. The text recounts previous wars between the Swedes and Novgorodians dating back to the thirteenth century, namely failed exploits by Birger Magnusson and Tyrgils Knutson, both of whom were defeated by Rus princes (most notoriously, in the Battle of Neva in 1240 by Prince Alexander, whose attribute – Nevsky – derives from this victory). The second half of the text focuses on Magnus’s unsuccessful 1348 campaign. The narrator (allegedly Magnus) admonishes himself for breaking a peace treaty with Rus and capturing Novgorodian land. Like his predecessors, Magnus was unsuccessful. Fleeing the approaching Novgorodians, Magnus and his army were shipwrecked. Magnus’s misery continues: his lands suffer from civil war, illness, and famine. He goes insane and is locked up in a sanitorium. Magnus’s son Hakon frees Magnus from his confinement, but Magnus is once again shipwrecked. Floating on a piece of the wrecked ship, Magnus, a Roman Catholic, is saved by Orthodox monks from Rus, who baptize him and initiate him into monkhood. (The real-life Magnus had attempted to convert Novgorodians to Catholicism.) The text implies that the converted Magnus will die soon after writing this manuscript.

The “Testament of Magnus” is notable for its religious imagery. The text grafts familiar Christian tropes onto the story of Magnus’s sorrows. These sorrows begin first with Magnus’s violation of “крⷭ҇тноє целованіє” (kissing the cross), a medieval promise ritual popular in Rus. The narrating Magnus acknowledges multiple times that his suffering was due to violating the Peace Treaty of Nöteborg, which Magnus himself made with Novgorod in 1323. Like other important medieval oaths, the treaty was cemented by the kissing of the cross. Thus, God’s retribution humbles Magnus, causing the Swedish king to convert to Orthodox Christianity. Notably, in recounting the second shipwreck, the narrator describes himself as floating, having been pinned or nailed down by wooden planks (“исторцьнемъ пригвоꙁⷣихсѧ”), when the Orthodox monks find him — an allusion to Christ’s crucifixion.

Scholars today unequivocally reject the text’s claims that Magnus was its author, though the true authorship of the “Testament” is unknown. Most historical accounts suggest that the Swedish king died in a shipwreck in 1374, so the “Testament” account of Magnus’s final days and conversion are fictional. However, some of Magnus’s life does track with the information given in the “Testament”: it is known that Magnus was dethroned in 1363, imprisoned from 1365 to 1371 (as compared to the one year of confinement mentioned in the text), and freed by his son Hakon, who sought to bring Magnus to Norway. More broadly speaking, the historical material regarding Swedish-Rus relations is supported by contemporaneous chronicles from Rus and Sweden. As a forged manuscript the “Testament of Magnus” offers insight into the information ecosystem of medieval Eastern Europe and suggests the tenor of foreign relations between medieval Swedish and Rus peoples.

Credits

Transcription by , Translation by , Encoded in TEI P5 XML by